The West Point School Board reached a settlement with Peter Vlaming, in which the school district leadership agreed to pay $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees. Additionally, the school board agreed to remove the firing from Vlaming’s record.
Vlaming was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that has won religious liberty cases at the United States Supreme Court.
ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer wrote in a press release, “As a teacher, Peter was passionate about the subject he taught, was well-liked by his students, and did his best to accommodate their needs and requests. But he couldn’t in good conscience speak messages that he knew were untrue.”
Vlaming said that while he gracefully tried to accommodate every student in his class, he could not say something that directly violated his conscience.
In 2018, Vlaming was fired for refusing on religious grounds to refer to a female student by using male pronouns. He offered to refer to the student by her chosen male name instead. However, the school district accused him of discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
Last December, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of Vlaming, vacating an earlier decision against him and remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings.